Tuesday, 25 March 2014

State ‘failed poll chaos sex victims’

Kenya National Commission on Human Rights CEO Patricia Nyaundi at a past event.

A rights watchdog has accused the government of discriminating
against the survivors of sexual violence in the 2007/08 post-election
violence.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights
chief executive officer told a Nairobi court on Tuesday that the
government failed to address the survivors’ cases.

Ms
Patricia Nyaundi said during an emotional hearing of a petition by the
survivors of sexual and gender- based violence that the government had
discriminated against the survivors despite evidence that they were
abused by security officers.

“Those who perpetrated
sexual violence on vulnerable women are walking free, yet the government
has done nothing to help their stigma. I do not understand why they are
being discriminated against when those displaced during the violence
have been compensated,” said Ms Nyaundi.

She took the
court through the time she worked at the Federation of Women Lawyers
(Fida) and the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission during which
she got first hand testimonies of women who had been sexually abused.

“I
received many calls from women and men who had been subjected to rape,
sodomy and forceful circumcision. Some said they had been abused by
police officers.”

Ms Nyaundi said she participated in
preparing the Waki Commission and the TJRC reports which detailed how
police officers deployed in the violence hot-spots to protect the
vulnerable turned out to be the perpetrators.

She
testified that the government violated the victims’ right to life since
it had prior information of violence during the 2007 election but failed
to take measures to stop it.

According to her, it is
unfortunate that the government has only considered compensating and
settling the internally displaced when survivors of sexual violence
continue to suffer without any medical support.

She said it was disheartening to come across women who had their genitals raptured and others who contracted HIV.

“Why
should somebody walk in that state when the government has an
obligation to take care of them? The sexual violence meted on victims is
punishable by life imprisonment, but the priority of survivors is not
the conviction but to get help,” said Ms Nyaundi.

She
was testifying in a case in which eight survivors of sexual and
gender-based violence, the Coalition on Violence Against Women, the
Independent Medico-Legal Unit, the International Commission of Jurists
and Physicians for Human Rights have sued the government.